“America is ready for a new chapter”

“America is ready for a new chapter,” Obama said from the podium. “America is ready for a better story. We are ready for President Kamala Harris.” Shortly before, someone in the audience had already invoked Kamala’s name as the former president posed the rhetorical question: “Who will fight for me? Who will think about my future, about my children’s future — about our world? A future together?”

When she just appeared on stage, introduced by Michelle Obama, the stadium shook with a long standing ovation that culminated in shouts of “Yes we can“There was energy that Obama had to rekindle and mobilize again. “It was time to fight. And despite all the incredible energy we’ve been able to generate in recent weeks, this is still a tough race in a divided country — a country where too many Americans are still struggling and don’t believe that government can help them.”

By introducing her as his successor, Obama sought to highlight Harris’s candidacy without overshadowing it. “We need a president who truly cares about the millions of people who wake up in this country every day to do the jobs that matter most,” he said. […] And fight for their right to fight for better wages and better working conditions. Kamala will be that president. Yes you canObama said. In the transition “Yes we can“the”Yes you can“, is where Obama passed the baton to Harris.

The vice president is his successor, but he is not (like a parallel). Harris has defined her uniqueness by creating a narrative that feeds on women’s empowerment in a context where basic women’s rights, like abortion, are under siege. This particular brand has already proven crucial to Harris’s leadership: A poll released this weekend by Washington Post ABC News It showed how clearly Harris had much more support than Biden among women and young people.

Obama likely lived some kind of I already saw With 2016, when he also spoke at that year’s Democratic National Convention to try to make Hillary Clinton the first president of the United States. At the time, the former president also described the election as “unusual” due to the possibility that Trump would come to power with his inflammatory rhetoric.

This year’s election is not typical either, not to mention the country is embroiled in one of the most turbulent campaigns in history. Within weeks, Trump survived a shooting, and Biden dropped his candidacy on the eve of the convention. These are two events separated by at least a decade in history: the resignation of Democrat Lyndon Johnson in ’68, and the attempted assassination of Republican Ronald Reagan in ’81.

“Most of us don’t want to live in a bitter, divided country. We want something better. And the joy and enthusiasm that we see around the Harris-Waltz campaign tells us that we are not alone.” Obama also offered some words of healing in a deeply polarized society. In contrast to the rhetoric that Donald Trump used to appeal to unity at the Republican convention, Obama sought to reach audiences other than Democratic voters.

“We’ve built walls and barriers around ourselves, and then we wonder why we feel so alone. We don’t trust each other because we no longer take the time to get to know each other — and in the middle of this distance between us, politicians and algorithms are teaching us to caricature each other and fear each other,” the former president is referring not only to Trump, but also to Elon Musk, the owner of the X platform who put his social network at the service of the Republican last week.

Harris challenges Trump in Milwaukee

Ironically, Harris was not at the stadium that evening to receive Obama’s blessing. The absence was justified. In the middle of Trump’s downtime, Harris and Tim Walz traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to hold a rally at the Fiserv Forum. This is the same stadium where Trump was crowned the nominee and undisputed leader of the Republican Party.

“This is a campaign about people power,” Harris said as the screens at the United Center linked directly to Fiserv. At that moment, ecstatic shouts echoed through the speakers in Milwaukee, while the live audience in Chicago also erupted in cheers. If Trump was really upset about Harris’s larger presence at rallies, the gesture would be interpreted as a provocation. It now seems that Democrats are the ones who want to make a play for them to convince Trump to drop out.

It’s the exact opposite of the party’s nomination under Joe Biden, who built much of his message on fear of a second Trump term. Harris avoided repeating that mistake and delivered a speech that looked to the future with new horizons of opportunity.

Obama’s embrace of Harris also has strong sentimental value. The former president and vice president’s mutual support dates back to 2007, when a young, fair-skinned Obama announced his candidacy. Then, when Harris was in the middle of his career as attorney general, she was one of the first people to support his campaign. Some media outlets even dubbed her “the female Obama.” Now, 17 years later, Obama is closing the circle that opened more than a decade ago.

Reconciliation with Biden

“History will remember Joe Biden as a president who stood up for our democracy at a time of great peril. I’m proud to call him my president, but I’m even prouder to call him my friend.” With those words, Obama sought to try to heal the wounds of his former vice president.

Obama, 63, is one of the party’s leading intellectuals, and amid the panic surrounding Biden’s nomination, the former president played a key role in pressuring him to resign. The Obama administration’s backing of him has hurt Biden badly. The president was not at the stadium when Obama spoke, having left for California after his speech on Monday to begin a weeklong vacation.